Congratulations to the students, young people and unions of France for soundly defeating the First Job Contract law. That is such a fantastic victory and shows what people can achieve when they are determined and do not back down. If only we had taken a similar approach (with, perhaps, less violence) here in Australia we might not have to deal with ‘Workchoices‘ today.
It also looks like Romano Prodi might be victorious over Berlusconi in the Italian elections, which would be another piece of good news in world politics. I don’t want to get prematurely excited, but I think that the tide is turning against the Right.
We can only hope.
[Cross-posted at two peas, no pod]
Update: Well, now Romano Prodi is claiming victory, but this is being contested by Berlusconi’s party since the vote in the lower house is currently split 49.8% v 49.7% in the lower house. Apparently, “[s]ince both chambers have equal powers, a split control of parliament could deadlock legislation and force the country back to the polls.” My fingers are crossed for Prodi.
The tide has largely turned against right wing economic elitism, at least in the Anglosphere. Certainly Bush’s tax cuts and Hewson’s Fight Back were not big vote winners. So the defeat of France’s workplace reforms does not surprise me.
The tide has not turned against right wing cultural populism. If anything Berklusconi’s left baitng was the only thing that was keeping him in the race. By any other measure – professional-ethic integrity and political-economic competency – Berlusconic deserved to lose. His final result was much better than standard political models would predict.
It’s a very bad result for France, particularly its young people, among whom unemployment currently runs at 23 per cent. The only way of increasing real employment prospects for young people is to make the option more attractive to employers. This is what the government tried to do. It’s hard to conceive that that people shold demonstrate so vociferously and violently against a measure that was actually designed to assist them
Then again, recent polls indicate that 75 per cent of French youth aspire above all to becoming, of all things, public servants.
Here’s some good commentary by Theodore Dalrymple
Stubborn old France, still thirty years behind our wonderful workplace regime. Don’t read this article Rob, it’ll give you nightmares
Thanks, Leinad, it’s a very good article that fingers more precisely than Dalrymple the roots of France’s malaise — evidence of which was in such plain view on the streets over the past few weeks.
Well, let’s just see how all this plays out, shall we?
Just don’t expect me to care about bailing out the Frenchies in 10 years time. They’ve made their bed, let them sleep in it. Problem is they pose a bit of a negative externality to the rest of us because their problems are a breeding ground for the next generation of Islamic terrorists.
I must say I also can’t see this as being a great thing for France. Its pretty clear with severe youth unemployment – that they need to do something to encourage people to hire young workers.
Great result for what? The battle ground over the ballot box? A terrible, weak decision by the French President, who could have saved face for himself and the Government by at least holding talks with his ministers with a view to bringing constructive reforms to their law which would maybe have ended the present, and now ungoing deadlock in the workplace for young French job seekers by encouraging employers, without alienating the young people who have been rioting and protesting. No, we don’t want this kind of wild, violent anarchy on our streets as a way of changing the minds of our elected Government’s policies. Protests, yes. Car burning, no!
The French remind me of Bangladesh.
don’t like the government then demonstrate and try and bring it down.Great decision in condemning the youth to unemployment.
My views on Berlusconi have been aired many times but the Economist.
He should be in Gaol. He had control of both houses and did nothing!
What did the young french gain? A guarantee to lifetime of unemployment.
“What did the young french gain? A guarantee to lifetime of unemployment.”
Yes, of course, it is that simple. Of course the only way of reducing unemployment is to reduce worker’s rights. Can you back up that claim with any evidence? Can you prove that other measures are completely ineffective?
I think young people in France have made it pretty clear what they think about a measure that only promotes access to insecure temporary jobs. The French government have listened and shown themselves ready to rework this issue and come back with a more helpful and sustainable solution. Perhaps you should join them.
It’s not really a matter of reducing the rights of workers — or not only. It’s a matter of reducing the level of risk to employers if they employ young people. Now, of course, French employers will be even less inclined to employ the young.
They haven’t just shot themselves in the foot — they’ve machine-gunned their legs off.
You know for once Jack Strocchi’s pinned it, and in an uncharacteristically concise comment: the CPE laws were economic elitism of the worst order. If smashing wages and workplace rights might have lead to more employment—a proposition about which I’m sceptical—why not apply it to the old folks as well, not just the under 25s?
And if they were going to discriminate on the grounds of reducing unemployment, why not junk equal pay entirely, and bring back legally lower pay for women, and institute a marriage bar?
I’m yet to hear any derechistas make the logical jump from the collective to the individual, and into arguing that ‘reducing MY wages will increase employment’. And I’d be interested if any of you would volunteer for a pay cut.
The workers have the right to strike whilst the employer does not – where’s the balance?
That’s just wrong, Rog. Employers can and frequently do lock their workforces out. In Australia, Optus is leading that charge.
And in fact, employers’ right to lock out their workforces has been expanded by WorkChoices while employees’ right to strike has been diminished.
Liam
I’ve never worked in a job that’s been covered by an award. My wage has always been set by market forces. And unlike other professions, it’s an internationally mobile labour market – anyone from any country can come over to Australia and set up a shingle as an economist, even engineers and MBAs. All this moaning about globalisation and the fact is that most white collar professions were exposed to globalisation ages ago. It’s professions like plumbers and hairdressers which will continue to remain insulated (unless you had open borders). Thus your rhetotical question is totally facetious. Plus what matters is *your* employment in each person’s mind, not whether others will be employed. of course it’s natural to put one’s own interests first. but the issue is whether the young workers are in effect cutting their own throats by not wanting to have the opportunity to undercut.
It’s not a case of volunteering for a pay cut, no one in his or her right mind would want to, but accepting one if that’s what it takes. Young people are targeted, not old people because
1) there is a youth unemployment problem
2) young people aren’t very skilled and experienced and the longer the stay out of the labour market the worse their prospects (unless they’re studying for some degree but even then).
Bully for you Jason. All the jobs I’ve ever worked in have had their conditions set by generations of collective bargaining.
Nobody’s moaning about globalisation, the legitimate complaint is that employers are benefiting from it at the expense of citizens. As for your pathetic excuse for a workplace strategy, that young people have worked against their own interests by:
I repeat, your wages first.
Won’t somebody please make the actual argument, which really boils down to “I want my kids to be be paid less that I was, for the good of the economy”?
who the hell is making this argument, Liam? This is an absurd strawman. There is no such thing as the good of the economy – this is about whether young workers can get a foot into the labour market. This is about their own opportunities. There is no separate ‘economy’ or ’society’ just potentially mutually beneficial transactions between individuals which may or may not be hampered by regulations. And not everyone will get the same wage. This will depend on perceived skills and contribution to the workforce.
Is there such a problem with poverty suffered by spoilt French middle class youth that it has to be addressed by forcing all young workers to be employed at rates that middle class French youth are accustomed to, even if they’re underprivileged immigrant underclass yoof?
Jason, the vision of just society I grew up with was one where people could expect a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.
Yours seems to be one of a huge auction where people betray and undercut each other to get work at all.
I’m not sure about all of this. It’s good that such abhorrent legislation was rescinded, but has the Chirac Government just rubber-stamped uncivil disobedience?
It wouldn’t be the first time – a right wing government fell in the mid 90s after street protests. It’s French culture – it’s very different.
The balance comes not only from the employer’s right to institute a lock-out during an industrial dispute but also to make decisions to invest in new technologies that are less labour reliant, to outsource to independent contractors, to invest their profits in other activities and in many cases to move their operations overseas, leaving their workforces to wither on the vine, if they don’t simply terminate their employment on the ground of redundancy.
That’s certainly part of the vice of this volte face, Guy. It was a straight out capitulation to riot. Imagine the message it sends to the banlieus — as if they hadn’t already been given it.
Optus has just exercised its right to “outsource to independent contractors” by dismissing 60 of its staff for “operational reasons”. They may get the option of working in the same jobs as independent contractors for less money and none of the conditions (ie leave) that go with being a contractor).
Obviously, Rob, this is what you get when you have a tired right wing government led by an old man who’s been in power for too long
The thing is that of the youth in France that are working, 64% are on short term contracts or casuals. So given that most already have insecure temporary jobs, I don’t see that this was going to make things worse. Instead it might get a few of the people getting temporary contracts onto something that will in a few years become permanant.
A lot of the arguments relate to the idea that lower minimum wages will result of higher employment for the lowest paid. It would be good for people to discuss this idea, and any relevant research, moreso. I don’t know of much research about this.
The media is currently running a story on federal govt commissioned research which supposedly asserts that many more jobs would have been created if the AIRC had accepted the Howard govts suggested increases in the minimum wage and of the many fewer jobs that would have resulted if the AIRC had accepted the ACTU’s suggested increases (of course the results of this research depends on the assumptions made in the study).
If there was research about the relationship between minimum wage rates and (un)employment then we could discuss this with more confidence. I did hear, vaguely, of research in the US with asserted that increases in the minimum wage were correlated with increases in employment amongst those receiving this wage. Alternatively, for those on the left, what are the implications of research indicating that decreases in real wages resulted in increased employment? This, of course, is the assumption between the “Fair Pay Tribunal”.
Sacha in this instance its more about ease of firing making employers more likely to take a chance on the inexperienced, or otherwise unproven potential employees. Derrida Derider had an interesting comment about minimum wages at Catallaxy, saying (from memory) where minimum wages are low there are situations where it raising them raises total employment, on the other hand if they get too high then they reduce employment – which obviously must occur at some level.
The studies that Andrew Leigh was quoting was that making it easier to sack people doesn’t reduce unemployment in total but does reduce long term unemployment as people are more willing to take a chance if they know they can get rid of them if it doesn’t work out. I would, expect a similar effect on those that have never worked as well.
Also in my earlier post, to put the 64% figure more precisely – of those working 64% are casual or in temporary employment one year after leaving education.
Lots of strawmen here, and comparing Australian legislation to French really is apples and oranges.
This is an unqualified disaster for France, it guarantees 25% plus youth unemployment, and 50-60% (plus) plus in the banlieus, as well as cripplingly low economic growth. All to toady to spoiled middle-class brats who want a guarantee of lifetime employment from the FIRST employer who hires them, and who cannot sack someone who does not work after being hired.
This is the (admittedly broad) equivalent of the Hawke government rescinding its policy for micro-economic reform in favour or subsidy and protectionism.
Those gloating over this ‘win’ remond me of those who gloated over the collapse of the old Rhodesian government. Nasty it might have been , but what replaced it was a new experience in horror. (Black Zimbabweans long for the ‘good old days’ of Ian Smith’s government unless they are senior ZANU-PF members in good standing)
But as ideologically sound (but locally confined)horror happening to people on another continent, it is all OK I suppose, to a lefty.
Nice.
So what now? The muslims in the banlieus STILL will not be able to get a job, and so will continue their despairing inwards turning to radical extremism. That will lead to another explosion of violence, and at some time the French in their inimitable way will respond with ruthless repression. This may be the start of a cycle of violence that will drag Europe back to their favourite way of resolving ethnic differences. Srebrenica writ large, anyone?
MarkL
Canberra
With the banlieuristes playing the role of Robespierre and Armand St Just, Naomi.
Update on the Italian election inserted above.
Must be off to yoga now…
Under WorkChoice an employer is not able to conduct a lockout. Lockouts, like strikes, are considered ‘industrial actions’ and are prohibited.
I noticed that Christy was ambivalent over the role of violence used by the French strikers;
“If only we had taken a similar approach (with, perhaps, less violence)”
How bad does it have to get before Australian workers will riot on the scale of the Cronulla and southern beaches riots?
Nonsense, rog.
Employers and employees can still take industrial action during bargaining periods – when it is called “protected action” – see Part 9 of the amended Workplace Relations Act
Thanks, Steve – in retrospect, my comment was quite off-topic!
“The studies that Andrew Leigh was quoting was that making it easier to sack people doesn’t reduce unemployment in total but does reduce long term unemployment as people are more willing to take a chance if they know they can get rid of them if it doesn’t work out. I would, expect a similar effect on those that have never worked as well.”
Assuming these studies to be true, I’d like to suggest that it’s better for there to be fewer long-term unemployed.
Excellent. I shall have to learn to knit so that I am ready to get full enjoyment from watching (from a safe distance, oh the joys of modern technology) as the tumbrils roll towards La Place de la Revolution to deposit the modern French aristocracy, the graduates of Les Grandes Ecoles, in front of Dr Guillotin’s machine for prompt despatching.
And after them the bloated clergy of modern France, its class of public intellectuals.
Better for whom, Sacha. There’s already a lot of churning driven by the Job Network where there are financial incentives to place long term unemployed people in jobs for a few months – the employer then dispenses with the person when the subsidy runs out and hires yet another subsidised person, but the employment services provider can get another payment for getting that person another short term job, and so on.
The incentive structure is all wrong if the goal is to get people ongoing employment.
Mark, isn’t that what the French government now proposes to do — more incentives to take on disadvantaged youth, etc? As you say, these schemes have a bad history. Whereas what had been originally proposed was a lowering of the threshold of risk to encourage employers to take a chance with such employees, reducing the enormous penalties for making a mistake.
I can’t really comment on the French situation, Rob, I haven’t been following it.
Liam
You can’t have anything. The next time there’s another riot by Muslim youth in France and the RWDBs blame Islam and say ‘I told you so’ you have no one to blame but yourselves and the selfish middle class French youth who opposed freeing up the labour market to let ‘outsiders’ in. Of course it’s not Islam to blame, it’s dirigiste. Now at least Jack is consistent. He wants to keep a fairly inflexible labour market and keep out low skilled immigrants who would otherwise be competing with low skilled native borns for jobs. The one exacerbates the effects of the other – because the low skilled can’t compensate for lower skills, higher risks of employment by offering to work for lower wages they will stay in the underclass longer and end up being prime recruits for Al Qaeda if they’re of Muslim background. If you don’t bring them into France in the first place, they’re less of an issue. Jack at least supports a model that is more viable though as a cosmopolitan liberal I disagree with his choice. So the Left will have to choose sooner or later – keep your precious dirigste State and go back to low or close to zero immigration levels where only highly skilled immigrants who add to taxpayer coffers and don’t become a burden on the welfare state get in or free it up if you don’t want a time bomb on your hands.
Mark, I don’t know about existing centrelink schemes. Perhaps the way is to tweak the incentives – eg the job network provider gets nothing until and unless the person is employed for 2 years, át a guess. If one incentive scheme doesn’t work, a different one could (should) be tried.
I’d say that it’s better for someone to be unemployed for a short time rather than another person to be unemployed for a long time, if that’s a choice you have to make (and by this I’m not saying that one has to make this choice).
I have an open mind on the French govt’s (former) proposals – given the very high youth unemployment, perhaps they had to try different things, perhaps radically different things – who knows, perhaps it might have worked… it would be good for those who were against the policies to lay out alternative policies – perhaps these alternatives could be tried.
Sacha
A quick take on the research by Andrew Leigh et al. Yes I’m happy to acknowledge that the minimum wage-employment negative correlation breaks down below a certain level of minimum wage and flexibility in hiring and firing can only go so far – but – Australia is a lot closer to this nirvana than France just as the US is a lot closer to this nirvana than Australia (in fact in the US min wage cutting may have few other effects)- which means that such reforms would be expected to have better employment effects in France than in Australia.
The proposed French law cannot be compared with WorkChoices. I strongly oppose WorkChoices but I think the French laws should have been given a chance.
Liam needs to loosen the band on his beret as it is clearly cutting the supply of oxygen rich blood to his brain. We Lefties can blubber about social justice all we like but we need to acknowledge the way the market works. High youth unemployment is disastrous. It can lead to criminality, suicide, depression, social alienation, cynicism and so on. Concrete solutions, not slogans and platitudes are needed.
Besides, are we sure that all French youth opposed the reforms? How do we know the tyre burning rock throwers spoke for all French youth?
It is also worth noting that the most prominent student leader of the 1968 riots, who is now a Greens member of the European Parliament, supported the reforms.
LOL
I like your style, Munn. And yes, you Greenies seem a lot more sensible than your standard dyed in the wool democratic socialists.
“So the Left will have to choose sooner or later – keep your precious dirigste State and go back to low or close to zero immigration levels where only highly skilled immigrants who add to taxpayer coffers and don’t become a burden on the welfare state get in or free it up if you don’t want a time bomb on your hands.”
I’ve been saying this for over two years. C’mon Lefties, which is it going to be? Open borders or welfare state?
Jason Soon on 11 April 2006 at 6:44 pm
Now at least Jack is consistent. He wants to keep a fairly inflexible labour market and keep out low skilled immigrants who would otherwise be competing with low skilled native borns for jobs.
Believe it or not I quite like free and flexible labour markets. Price movements provide an excellent way of soaking up or rationing quantity flunctuations.
But the LHS of the Australian Bell Curve is not quite ready for a globalised labour market. THis was realised early in the piece by the founders of the ALP, who were as fearful of Chinese fossikers as Kanaka blacklegs. But one must not mention these embarassing facts these days.
More to the point, there is the Ricardo effect to consider. A closed border makes labour arbitrarily scarce and more expensive in relation to capital one can encourage investement in technological machines.
This assumes an intelligent and tech-savvy workforce can operate these machines. Australian workers have been remarkably un-Luddite in their attitude towards new gizmos, a fact which HR Nicholls Society fans tend to overlook.
“Jack at least supports a model that is more viable though as a cosmopolitan liberal I disagree with his choice.”
At least Jack shows an interest in having some kind of consistency, although I can think of some fairly strong criticism (such as here: http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1766 ) of his position.
Jason Soon on 11 April 2006 at 7:00 pm
Australia has long since reached the point of diminishing returns from barrier-removal cum safety net withdrawal in labour market reform. We have had a generation of labour market reform and union decline. Most workers are already effectively on individual contracts and there is very little slacking or featherbedding going on any more.
There comes a point in libertarian reform where equity considerations outweigh efficiency gains. But, going by the extravagant salaries on offer to CEOs and the abuse of stock options, there seems plenty of scope for the bosses to feather their own nests or gild their parachutes. These remumnerations do not seem to encourage more efficient effort. More a zero-sum arms race game between different firms to see how much of their spare resources they can throw at the well-heeled.
The removal of minium-wage and award conditions does not necessarily reduce unemployment in more or less open labour markets. This is a conclusion drawn by an impeccably neo-classical economists Krueger/Card.
The older I get the more I see that the cultural sub-structure determines the economic mid-structure and political super-structure. That is to say the personal conditions the professional which governs the political.
So I expect France’s economic problems will be most profitably addressed by changing their “family values”. But that woudl ruin the charm of French life. Do we really need to remake the world to make it all conform to Texan labour markets. I know, I worked in Texas for a while and it aint much fun.
There is no doubt that the Anglosphere showed, in Alan Blinder’s words, how political life came to imitate economic art: How the Economy Came to Resemble the Model.
Can’t see how your link proves your point Mark, I continue to find examples to the contrary eg;
Minister Andrews confirmed that following the commencement of WorkChoices protected action would no longer be available when negotiating an AWA. This means that employees will not be able to take AWA industrial action. Nor will employers be able to take protected action by way of a lockout when negotiating Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs). Currently an employer is able to lock out employees negotiating an AWA.
http://atant.asn.au/bulletins/20060326.html
Jack: “…a closed border makes labor arbitrarily scarce…”
Well, it doesn’t make labor *arbitrarily* scarce. It makes it either scarce or plentiful depending on internal conditions of the nation, as desired by its laws and the expressed political will of its people. Does boiling your drinking water make it *arbitrarily* free of pathogens?
Mark: “the incentive structurs is all wrong if the goal is…”
This hits it squarely on the head. It’s a political decision, not an economic one. *What is the political goal?* Assuming we think that economics is a fairly ‘rational’ ’science,’ let us do it that credit and assume it can be a useful, reliable, predictable tool for helping us to calibrate policy, in order to achieve *whatever policy it is that we state we want in our [given] society.* If it’s a welfare state with its concomitant social and economic costs, then policies x and y. If it’s cheap labor at all costs to all other forms of civil existence, then policies z and w. Economics will then help us determine what are the costs and benefits to each, and what we ought to do to get a given outcome. Let a society articulate and agree which outcome it wants, (or riot over which one it wants, if that’s their, um, ‘culture,’) then crunch the numbers accordingly.
GARAGE MECHANIC TO CAR OWNER: I can make your car go really fast, but it will be less safe. Or I can make it go safely, but not as fast. Which do you value more? Speed or safety? We can tweak it to go either way, you know…
Steve Edwards on 11 April 2006 at 7:41 pm
This is possibly true for the under-class. It depends on their underlying moral and intellectual capacities. These may not be fostered by certain national and cultural policies.
Obviously the open borders and cultural revolutions that occured during the sixties are not consitent with “cultural conservatism”. So one cannot point to the economic malaise of the senventies and blame it on the welfare state.
But the complement is also true. Plutocratic wealthfare statism also breeds moral and intellectual decline in the over-class. The Bush admins’s recent cut in the Estate Tax has been dubbed the “Paris Hilton Act”. Sheis no poster child for moral and intellectual probity.
Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” thesis does not seem to be valid for family-formed middle-class societies. Most of the EU supports a genersous welfare states and the bourgeois middle class in the EU are not all that far off the economic pace.
It is lax cultural and immigration policies that undermine the welfare state. The New Left needs to get its tired old act together and sort itself out. It is destroying the legacies of the Old Left.
Actually, Jason’s analysis isn’t quite adequate as it stands. While the economic case against “Socialism plus Open Borders” is irrefutable, it may be the case that the Left doesn’t care. It is possible that “equality” is really only an alibi, rather than a first principle, and that the real purpose of the Left is simply to centralise and consolidate the government in the hands of an elite “progressive” plutarchy…which would be a society of substantial inequality rather like the Soviet Union. “Equality” then becomes not a raison d’etre, but a useful slogan, a phony pretext for a complete government takeover.
Indeed, if it is true that “equality” has long since been discarded as an honest objective, and that “control” is far closer to the true motivations, then it is hardly surprising that Open Borders and Unlimited Welfare go together in the minds of Leftists. Moreover, the phenomenon of Open Borders has demonstrably strengthened the state, and provided it with a plethora of new problems that require “fixing” by the very same agency that created them – inevitably through the “solution” of more welfare, more government departments.
Thus, importing an impoverished class of foreign mendicants and regulating them out of paid work will increase inequality, but it will also create the “need” for a massive welfare programme, said to be a “good” in itself. And this doesn’t even go into the numerous statutory bodies that must be set up to mediate the attendant frictions between the foreigners and their hosts, for instance by restricting the free speech of the latter, and preventing “RACIST!!!” thought criminals from exposing the entire system for the disgusting, immoral, tax-thieving and property-confiscating racket that it is.
Jack says, “It is lax cultural and immigration policies that undermine the welfare state.”
Well, yes and no. While lax immigration policies certainly transfer income away from the native working class and likely increase inequality, they also empower government agencies and generally encourage greater levels of tax-theft and property-aggression.
So a kind of socialism (big government) is brought about through mass immigration, but, as you correctly imply, it has nothing to do with “equality” and, ipso facto, absolutely nothing to do with the traditional raison d’etre of the Left.
‘by restricting the free speech of the latter, and preventing “RACIST!!!â€? thought criminals from exposing the entire system for the disgusting, immoral, tax-thieving and property-confiscating racket that it is. ‘
Wow … just as well you’ve lost your Pinochet gravatar, Steve …
Steve Munn:
That’s cause they’ve been inducted into the boss class now, and put away their red-and-black flags, to take up the red and black of balance sheets. It’s pretty easy to diagnose lower minimum wages as the cure for a social ill when your own job isn’t likely to be affected by the medicine.
On what grounds do you oppose WorkChoices if you like the French reforms? It’s the same shit, just a different bucket. Is it the arbitrary restriction to young people?
I’m not saying that young unemployed people shouldn’t be given a chance at employment: I’m just saying it shouldn’t be at the expense of their own wages and conditions. If as Jason says there’s no distinction between economy and society, why is it always the disadvantaged who have to make the sacrifices for both?
…
JPZ, economics is not a science, if sciences are characterised by the ability to empirically test theory against practice, any more than history or philosophy is. Economists just slice open the chickens, divide the bits with imaginary curves, and statistically analyse the remaining giblets.
Jack,
One of your comments did trip a spam/moderation filter. It has been released.
“The removal of minium-wage and award conditions does not necessarily reduce unemployment in more or less open labour markets. This is a conclusion drawn by an impeccably neo-classical economists Krueger/Card.”
Yes, Jack which is completely consistent with my earlier point:
“Australia is a lot closer to this nirvana than France just as the US is a lot closer to this nirvana than Australia (in fact in the US min wage cutting may have few other effects)- which means that such reforms would be expected to have better employment effects in France than in Australia”
i.e. such reforms are more urgently needed in France than they are in Australia.
Jason, apparently the gravatar server is having a bit of a haemorrhage. Rest assured that Steve Edwards still iconically supports that old butcher.
Rob:
Sorry but it is not a bad result for France; in the l…o…n…g run it will save the French economy …. but only if they go back to the drawing board and develop workable policies and shred all those stupid fully-imported unworkable “neo con” fantasies they tried to inflict on France.
Okay all you conspiracy theorists, did George Bush get revenge on his hated French by having his secret agents persuade the French government to introduce that late and unlamented youth employment policy?
((rolls all over the ground laughing his head off))…..:-)
rog, re your comment, protected action is possible by both employers and employers during a bargaining period for a collective agreement.
I think the problem is not so much that the labour market needs change in France or not, it clearly does, but that the proposed changes were a bandaid solution.
Firing ANYONE in France is a huge pain in the arse for employers, this makes it difficult for employers to confidently hire anyone. However the problem is even worse for the youth who have little or no prior work experience.
I can see how a simple linear thought process would lead to the conclusion that we must therefore make it easy to fire young people (where the problem is the greatest). I would argue that what needs to be done is to remove the red tape and make the hiring and firing of people across the entire workforce easier.
Of course by this I don’t mean introducing a “workchoices” style arrangement, which I think is a bit of ideological grandstanding on the part of the evil dwarf king. But It has to be aknowledged that the French situation where an employee, even a grossly incompetent one, can legally stay working/getting paid for months before they can be legally terminated by the employer. The whole process over there seem far too convoluted and too much in favour of employees regardless of how crap they may be. Worker rights and protections should to some extent remain, but the system they have at the moment is clearly unworkable.
In my opinion, I thought we had it just about right here before Howard cracked a fat over his new senate powers and decided to metaphorically cum all over the workplace carpet before pulling it out from under the workers’ feet.
FWIW Immanuel Wallerstein links what is happening in France with what is happening in the US on migration from Mexico etc. In his latest comment he says:
I’ve put up a post which is a meta commentary on this thread, among others.
Bring BackComrade GraemeYeah that’s great news Cristy. So there will be great chunks of unemployed people living lives of despair, and most of those who are employed will continue to be stuck in their jobs with little control of their destinies or at least very high barriers to exerting effective control.
Yeah congratulations Cristy. I hope it makes you very happy.
Honestly girl? What’s in it for you?
Oh those whacky excitable frogs. Always rioting. 1789, 1848, 1871, 1968, 2006, etc, etc. And yet Paris is still one of most functional, cleanest and most beautiful cities for grown ups in the world, their countryside is stunningly beautiful and less polluted than most of the rest of Europe, the quality of life is as good as anywhere if you’ve got a fat credit card and they make the world’s best nuclear reactors, jet passenger planes, trains, cheese and wine.
I’m heading back there this September for two of my favourite pursuits – forcefeeding my liver while cruising along the Burgandy/Chablis’ canels and flaneuring my eyeballs with Parisienne women.
The odd smouldering Peugeot will just add a certain piquancy to the brisk autumn Latin airs.
And oh yes, Marseille. One of those few cities, like New York, Shanghai, Barcelona or Hong Kong, that is really a country in its own right. A very salty place.
There’s certainly something about Parisian women, Nabakov. Dunno what it is, but they float above the ground, apparently uplifted by a strange but perpetual rhapsody. Very strange. Never seen anything like it. Although for pure physical beauty, the Italian girls have got it.
Oh, and French cheese.
Hmm, rhapsody. I was going to say orgasm but I’m too refined for that.
Well for me, what gets me about Parisienne women is how they can look so effortlessly and apparently artlessly soigné yet be so earthy and Cartesian at close quarters.
Mind you, so many are neurotic pillheads once quarters are closed. Certainly in Paris, one eventually starts to wonder if the Green Cross has not replaced the Christian Cross as the symbol closest to the palpitating bosom of its inhabitants.
Don’t have the benefit of your experience there, Nabakov.
Quote a bit of Huysman as you stroke your ‘tache and pay in gold sovereigns for petit dejeuner as the sun staggers up over Montparnasse after a polymorphic night – and yer in like Flynn mate.
“There’s certainly something about Parisian women, Nabakov. Dunno what it is, but they float above the ground, apparently uplifted by a strange but perpetual rhapsody. Very strange. Never seen anything like it. Although for pure physical beauty, the Italian girls have got it.”
My advice is for you to take it where you can get it champ. Since none of us are going to believe that you are some sort of pussy connoisseur. If you’ve got a very big nose the poetry isn’t going to make up the deficit either. But you might be just smashing with a sword.
Nose, posey, sword, whatever. It all comes to a point in the end for her – n’est ce pas, mon petit choufleur?
Hands up everyone who saw the hilarious editorial dummy-spit about Europe in today’s “Oz”. It’s worth framing.
The impressions I gained in Central Europe many weeks ago was that communism was bad, that American-style capitalism had heaps of glitter but was worse (old folks still hope for the American Paradise to arrive next week though)and that everyone wants prosperity, nothing less than prosperity, ….. which they are certain they won’t get from either of those failed systems.
Nabakov:
Want someone to carry your bags?
Jack Strocchi:
—”Australian workers have been remarkably un-Luddite in their attitude towards new gizmos” —AND –”Most workers are already effectively on individual contracts and there is very little slacking or featherbedding going on any more”
Yes, but how can Australia’s herd of imitation, fake, plastic, synthetic, cardboard-cutout CEOs and managerial chairs-warmers keep their cushy jobs unless they maintain their fantasy that the opposite is true?.
I would really like to hear Steve Edwards take on this. I can already hear his black helicopter whirring …
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.283904893&par=0
Rome, 5 April (AKI) – The secretary general of Italy’s largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic communities in Italy (UCOII), has called on Italian Muslims to vote for the Party of Italian Communists at the general election. Hamza Piccardo sent an email late Tuesday to Muslim centres saying that the party’s leader Oliviero Diliberto had been sensitive to the needs of Muslim inmates when he was justice minister in the late 1990s and this constituted a sound reason to vote for him on 9-10 April. This was the first time that a leading member of Italy’s Muslim community publicly supported a party on the eve of an election.
Pinguthepenguin:
Agree with much of what you said about France and the need for reform …. but it must be fair and workable …. and with what you said about JWH’s masturbatory substitution for workable, fair and profit-friendly IR policies.
OT but is BBCG actually just Birdy himself? It sounds remarkably like him …
Jason, your powers of detection are well honed.
Not sure, I thought that but then I’ve never seen Birdy use any HTML tags, like the strikethrough on the first BBCG.
Oh goody!!
Does that mean we can let Birdy in to play with Nabs the cat again once in a while? Pretty please?
The strikethrough was added in later, when his identity was uncovered.
Yes, Mr Bird, I’m watching you!
Jason Soon:
Holy mackrel! Do you realize what this means? The crazy emperor, George II, will have to launch air strikes all over Italy, dend in the US Marines to bring about regime change, restore democracy and stop Islamist extremism in Italy ….. yeah, see how close it is to Gaddafi ….
Careful, Big Sister Anna Winter.
It looks like Birdy may have been the role model for the Hugo Weaving character in V for Vendetta
http://badanalysis.com/catallaxy/?p=1698#comment-45888
Let’s say for argument’s sake you have 100 youth and 70 are employed and 30 are unemployed. The former get on average $500 per week and the latter $100 per week. For the sake of argument let’s also assume that the majority of economists are correct that removing unfair dismissal protection for young workers increases their employment chances. As such after a couple of years of the policy you now have 90 youth employed on an average of $500 per week and 10 unemployed on $100 per week.
My “value judgement” is that under such a scenario the benefit (much higher youth employment) would far outweigh the cost (much less job security for youth). That is why I supported the French Government’s proposal. Obviously if the economists were wrong and the policy didn’t work it could have been reversed after a trial period with very little harm done.
People who think differently have a duty to come up with alternative proposals. Simply saying “no” then sitting on your hands isn’t good enough.
Quite right, Steve. As I understand them, the government’s proposals were quite modest. In the first two years a new employee could have their employment terminated and would be entitled to no more than 8 per cent of their salary on termination, rather than the huge penalities that currently apply across the board.
The idea was to encourage employers to be less predisposed against hiring potentially risky young people — especially those from a disadvantaged background — by making the cost of taking the risk significantly less. It might not have worked, but with 25% youth unemployment, rising to 50% in the banlieues, you’d think almost anything would be worth trying.
As it is, employers who watched the riots on TV or in the streets outside their shops would only find their worst prejudices confirmed, and will be even more reluctant to take them on.
I have not read the other comments, as I am short on time and perhaps even patience. However…
In terms of the victory of the French workers and students, some have said it is a “victory for the streets, for those who scream and intimidate”.
Well, what is the more democratic – millions on strike and marching causing the government to retreat, or one prime minister introducing a law without it being discussed in parliament?
But I digress…
Ultimately, if you wish bosses to be less nervous about taking on new staff. surely a 6 month probationary period could do the trick. Why does it have to be TWO YEARS? Do you need two years to find out someone is crap? To find out you can operate with that level of staffing? The aim of the law is clear, to create an army of disposable and subsequently powerless young workers.
Of course unemployment must be tackled. But this measure, this two years in which the sword of Damocles would hang above young workers, is pro-boss madness from the De Gaullists.
The French labour market could do with some more flexibility, but increased liberalisation of it must be accompanied with the defence of workers’ rights, defence of a just balance of power in the work place.
Also, something could be done about the training and education in France. Surely France has economic needs that are not being met at present that could be by appropriately trained young people.
What is needed here is a rational and comprehensive approach, not reaction and fundamentalism.
By the way, happy Passover.
Said, Giovanni.
Don’t quite see your point, Giovanni. Isn’t it better they have two years to prove their value to the employer? I imagine they could have been sacked at 6 months anyway if they ere incompetent, unproductive or dishonest. At least this way (or the way formerly proposed) allowed the employer a longer timeframe during which to make his or her assessment.
Remember you can’t force employers to employ banlieuristes: but you can make it less difficult for them to take a chance with them. That’s what the CDE was all about.
Isn’t it better they have two years to prove their value to the employer?
Why can this be better? What do you mean?
Giovanni invokes democracy. Wouldn’t the most democratic alternative be to actually find out what the youth of France want? How about a representative survey? Surely this is far more democratic than listening only to the hordes of stone throwing hoons who take to the streets.
Mob rule is not democracy Giovanni, it is thuggery.
What I mean is that if the employer has only six months, they will terminate the employee if they have any doubts at the end of that period. If it’s an apprenticeship type job, that may not be long enough for the employee to demonstrate the kind of aptitudes or skils that would make them of real and lasting value to the employer.
Like it or not, that’s why you stay employed: the employer thinks you’re worth the money he or she pays you, i.e. you represent a good return on the employer’s investment, and return as much or more to the employer than the cost of your wages.
Well Rob, if it takes you more than six months to work out someone’s crap, then I’m glad I’m not hiring you to hire people.
Also France produces roughly as much as Britain with fewer people working, so who has the problem?
Nice work if you can avoid it.
Hi Rob, nice to see there is a correlation between higher productivity and higher taxes thanks to the Hendy report.
Come aboard the left mate, we could do with muppets of your calibre.
Rob, what you say assumes employers are as dumb as dogshit, and need every chance to get it right, the opposite of what is implied for the employee, whose vulnerablity to the mistakes and misjudgments of the (admittedly dumb) boss are extended by exactly the same extent.
By contrast, what would be genuinely good for the employee, by way of example, would be, say, a scheme funded by contributions from all employers that ensured all workers had a three-year retraining period at a majority proportion of their previous wage between jobs. Look, I’m not saying that is feasible, but get some balance.
Whatever. This level of argument is bullshit, of course. Simply, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is that the law amounts to an extension of employer discretion at the expense of employee security. It’s called brutal class warfare, Howardian style, and where you stand (largely) depends on where you sit.
Steve, democracy is more than a periodic vote. Sometimes, democracy happens in the street, as part of a general movement. I think the way popular French resistance has morphed from the margins of ethnic inequity to the mainstream of opposition to neoliberalism rather clever.
Gee, Flute and CS, them Strolling Bones sure got yer blood pumping didn’t they? I’m now fuckin’ sorry I missed it.
I’ll be up Sydney next week. Feel like gloating over the show to me during a drink or five? Next Tuesday or Thursday is good for me.
You know the name, look up the number.
It usually takes me about two days, Nabakov. But how would that have looked on the statute books?
I don’t understand you, chris. Are you saying it would be better for the ‘grace’ period to be six months rather than two years?
Yes.
I’m also saying your reasoning is crap, unbalanced and beside the point.
Love to catch up Nabs.
You’ve lost me completely, cs.
2 years is four times six months; ergo, your average banlieuriste gets four times as long to demonstrate his/her worth with no appreciable cost to the employer for givng them a second, third, or fourth chance. That is, there’s no penalty involved in the extra chances. Remember the whole thing is about better chances of risadvantaged youth — the children of the well to do can look after themselves as they always have.
You don’t want this. You want them to go after six months, before they’ve likely had a chance to prove themselves? Because if there’s a cost to the employer, they won’t get a second chance.
Bizarre.
I mean, you’re arguing for a regime which four times harsher to unemployed youth, at least in terms of timeframes, than that proposed by the French government.
No. Four times more punitive on the worker, and the opposite for the employer. Relax. I don’t expect you to understand this, for it means placing yourself in another’s position.
Talking of which, you could try placing yourself in the position of an employer of French labour. Pehaps then you could see that we’re talking about a class of potential employees that the employers don’t want to employ in the first place. They will be quite happy to continue employing the well-educated offspring of the rich and privileged, who present a much lesser risk.
You have to give them an incentive — or at least reduce the disincentives — to take on the others.
Funny, nobody has mentioned some of the delightful employment rorts and corporate welfare that operated here in Australia. For example:
Hire for the duration of the work-creation subsidy and not a day longer. Immoral? Of course. Thoroughly legal? Naturally. Destructive? Who gives a damn; plenty more unemployed out there.
Or what about some of the very nasty Aussie-bashing overseas employment swindles?
What is really needed in France, Italy, Australia or wherever is a complete re-think of employment, pay, training, qualifications, tax rewards, productivity, welfare, arbitration, exploitation and justice. Fat chance of that ever happening in Australia though where we have an anti-farmer National Party, an anti-worker Labor Party, a confused, incompetent, bullying Liberal Party ….. and where most policy is made by unelected corporate crooks.